Mayoral candidate Gillingham calls for 311 boosts

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This article was published 09/08/2022 (1125 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Winnipeg’s 311 service should receive $1.1 million more to its budget each year until soaring wait times drop to a quarterly average of less than three minutes each, says mayoral candidate Scott Gillingham.

Gillingham promised, if elected Oct. 26, to begin the funding boost in 2023, which he says would allow the city to hire more staff, increase hourly pay rates and/or invest in additional training, depending on what’s most needed.

“311 is not working well right now. Low morale is a problem, made worse by heavy call volumes during and after the (COVID-19) pandemic and by an extraordinary (past) winter that we just had… For the sake of busy residents who reach out to us in good faith every day, we must fix these problems,” he said Tuesday.

The candidate’s team said the department had a $4.3 million budget in 2022.

When asked how he would pay to increase the funding, Gillingham revealed he won’t propose a property tax freeze in his mayoral campaign, though he declined to confirm how much he would raise taxes.

“It will not be a freeze. We need to make an investment in city services,” he said.

In April, a city report noted 311 call wait times surged to an average of 11 minutes 42 seconds in 2021, up from 2:56 in 2019, and 5:27 in 2020. At peak times, the longest waits exceeded two hours.

In July, the longest wait for a 311 call to be answered was 55 minutes. On Tuesday afternoon, the city’s 311 wait time tracker noted an average of 20 minutes.

The city has blamed complex questions, frequent staff turnover and high demand for fuelling the long waits. Winnipeg currently employs 72 full-time 311 staff, down from 105 in 2019.

Gillingham also promised to: deliver a 311 chatbot to answer basic questions; ensure 311 staff have clear permission to terminate abusive calls (to help retain employees); launch an international languages recruiting initiative to increase 311 staff diversity; and ensure all who contact 311 get updates on the status of their requests.

He would also ask council’s community services committee to determine if any city departments can handle calls directly, on a temporary basis, to relieve pressure on 311.

“For the people of Winnipeg, the No. 1 way they contact city services is through 311. I want to make that better,” Gillingham said.

In April, a city report noted efforts were underway to improve 311 service, with the city reviewing starting wages and making it easier for operators to end abusive calls.

“We are always operating with the mindset of continuous improvement,” Felicia Wiltshire, director of customer service and communications, said in a statement emailed Tuesday.

She declined to weigh in on a specific mayoral campaign pledge.

The spring city report also notes the city has tried to add a 311 chatbot but found it wasn’t effective at finding answers within the municipal government’s outdated website.

Coun. Janice Lukes, who has long criticized 311 delays, said she expects Gillingham’s plan would improve the service.

“One of the biggest concerns is… people can’t get through (to 311), so they wait. And the second biggest concern I hear from people is the system doesn’t get back to them (to confirm their request was handled),” said Lukes. “(These steps are) going to enable accountability.”

Gord Delbridge, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500, said higher pay is desperately needed to retain 311 staff. That potential change would be overdue, since the union has long demanded an immediate raise to the $14.11/hr rate for entry-level staff, he said.

“If you want to be a competitor in a tough labour market, we know that they’re underpaid, (so) pay them more.”

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Mission Gardens resident Jon Reimann, who has stopped calling 311 due to wait times, said he’s not convinced the proposed steps will be enough.

“It’s a good start, I would say, to get (calls) through (but)… I think they need more manpower to fix the issues that people might be calling in. I think it’s about the manpower to fix the hole in the road or trim the tree,” said Reimann.

Fourteen candidates have thus far registered campaigns in the 2022 mayoral race. Nomination papers (which get a name on the ballot) are due Sept. 20.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyane_pursaga

Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.